Abstract of

Re-envisioning Reading and Writing Through Combined-Text Picture Books

Deborah Dean

Sirpa Grierson

Combined-text picture books unite multiple genres, providing nuanced information on a single topic from the unique lens of each genre. By providing guided practice in reading and writing a combined-text picture book, teachers can help students develop sensitivity to different types of texts, to what they do and how they do it. Such sensitivity can give students a foundation for selecting appropriate strategies for reading and writing effectively in a wider variety of genres. This article describes the process of explicit instruction, discussion, and guided practice with one such text, One Leaf Rides the Wind, that helped one class of seventh-grade students develop as strategic readers and writers when they created a class version of a combined-text picture book.

Abstract from Dean, D., & Grierson, S. (2005, March). Re-envisioning Reading and Writing Through Combined-Text Picture Books. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 48(6), 456–468. doi: 10.1598/JAAL.48.6.2